INTJ Personality and Emotions

INTJs are defined by their confidence, logic, and exceptional decision-making, but all of this hides a turbulent underbelly – their emotions. The very notion of emotional expression is synonymous with irrationality and weakness to many INTJs, a display of poor self-governance and fleeting opinion that can hardly stand up to the enduring light of factual truth.

This mistrust of emotions is understandable, as Feeling (F) is the most weakly developed trait for INTJs – like any complex tool, skilled hands can use it to remarkable effect, while untrained hands make clumsy and dangerous work.

People with the INTJ personality type take pride in remaining rational and logical at all times, considering honesty and straightforward information to be paramount to euphemisms and platitudes in almost all circumstances. In many ways though, these qualities of coolness and detachment aren’t the weapons of truth that they appear to be, but are instead shields designed to protect the inner emotions that INTJs feel. In fact, because their emotions are such an underdeveloped tool, INTJs often feel them more strongly than many overtly emotional types because they simply haven’t learned how to control them effectively.

There Is Not a Truth Existing Which I Fear

This is a challenging paradigm for INTJs to manage, especially younger and more Turbulent types who are already less confident than they would like to appear. These feelings are contrary to INTJs’ idea of themselves as paragons of logic and knowledge, and they may go so far as to claim they have no emotions at all. This does not mean that people with the INTJ personality type should be seen as, nor should they aspire to be, cold-blooded and insensitive geniuses living by the mantra that emotions are for the weak. INTJs must understand that this isn’t the case, and isn’t ever going to be.

More mature and Assertive INTJs find more useful ways to manage their feelings. While they will never be comfortable with a truly public display of emotions, INTJs can learn to use them, to channel them alongside their logic to help them achieve their goals. While seemingly contradictory, this can be done in several ways.

Firstly, INTJs are goal-oriented, with long-term ideas founded on sound logic. When something does cause an emotional reaction, good or bad, that energy can be used to further those goals, aiding rational and pre-determined plans. Secondly, emotions are figurative canaries in the coal mine, indicating that something is off even though logic can’t see it yet. These feelings can help INTJs to use their logic to ask questions they may not have thought to ask. "This is upsetting. Why? What can be done to resolve it?"

Question With Boldness

In this way, emotions are not INTJs’ way of addressing a decision, but rather an indication that a decision needs to be addressed. INTJ personalities’ Thinking (T) trait acts as a protective big brother to their Feeling (F) trait – seeing that something has upset the less able sibling, it steps in to take action, letting logic do the talking and resolving the condition rather than complaining about its consequences.

There comes a time though, when logic is simply the wrong tool for the job, when there just isn’t a rational solution to a problem, and it is in these situations that INTJs must use their Feeling (F) trait most clearly. INTJs would do well to practice this from time to time, or at least be aware of it, because however they may try, it is impossible to truly separate emotion from the decision-making process. The fact is that INTJs do feel, and deeply, and this makes them better, not worse.

So....I've known I was an INTJ since January 2017.
Turns out there were a couple INTJ's at my church, my job, and I didn't even realize it....!
I even dated a girl back in 2015, didn't even know she was too hehe. So I threw an E3 gaming conference back in June, and there were atleast 4 of us, maybe five INTJs (whole group was like 14 people). Felt great man! All of us are into gaming, anime nerd stuff.
I highly recommend you guys and gals seek out your fellow INTJs!
We're so few and it is an insanely awesone feeling being around people who just "get you" and understand your life experience.
By the way here's my family dynamics
Me. :INTJ
Dad :ISTP
Mom:ENFP (turbulent)
Bro :ENFJ
Sis :ESTJ

I seem to be crying!
The accuracy of this statement is absolutely precise. Even before discovering this website and reading this article, I had come to the conclusion that, at some point in life, I had accidentally split my personality into two; Big Brother and Lil Sis as I use to refer to them as. Anytime my feelings got hurt or I hit a dark spot in life, I would lock up and block out EVERYTHING, until my mind could comprehend and resolve the issue, including people who were just trying to help. Once I observed, comprehended, and analyzed this behavior, I started to notice more and more situations were this "split" was applicable. From there and with each situation, the two personalities became more and more defined until I considered them two separate entities existing in one; The one being me!
I guess the reason I'm crying is now I know that I'm not broken after all.
"Thinking (T) trait acts as a protective big brother to their Feeling (F) trait – seeing that something has upset the less able sibling, it steps in to take action, letting logic do the talking and resolving the condition rather than complaining about its consequences."

Aww so cute xD I see why; you are on the INTJ -T (Turbulent) side meaning that you are more acceptable to wide range of emotional shift given the circumstance. I understand the analogy; for me I see that emotion can be wild and dangerous so it needed to be control but not suppressed. I would use my logic to do the heavy lifting while keeping my emotional side in check. Cause in the end we are all human and emotion is part of it, to say that we must get rid of emotion is BS, what I would say is control it and don't let it run wild.

WOW! So far literally everything is so accurate that it is creepy. Nobody gets me, and I now see why. it is because I am within the 0.8% so I don't know anybody that can truly understand what its like to be me.